Omics era in type 2 diabetes: From childhood to adulthood

Abstract

Parallel to the dramatic rise of pediatric obesity, estimates reported an increased prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) already in childhood. The close relationship between obesity and T2D in children is mainly sustained by insulin resistance (IR). In addition, the cardiometabolic burden of T2D including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome is also strictly related to IR. Although T2D pathophysiology has been largely studied in an attempt to improve therapeutic options, molecular mechanisms are still not fully elucidated. In this perspective, omics approaches (including lipidomics, metabolomics, proteomics and metagenomics) are providing the most attractive therapeutic options for T2D. In particular, distinct both lipids and metabolites are emerging as potential therapeutic tools. Of note, among lipid classes, the pathogenic role of ceramides in T2D context has been supported by several data. Thus, selective changes of ceramides expression might represent innovative therapeutic strategies for T2D treatment. More, distinct metabolomics pathways have been also found to be associated with higher T2D risk, by providing novel potential T2D biomarkers. Taken together, omics data are responsible for the expanding knowledge of T2D pathophysiology, by providing novel insights to improve therapeutic strategies for this tangled disease. We aimed to summarize the most recent evidence in the intriguing field of the omics approaches in T2D both in adults and children.

Microbiota and adipocyte mitochondrial damage in type 2 diabetes are linked by Mmp12+ macrophages

“…Several studies interrogating different omics data have been conducted attempting to address these questions ( Hosseinkhani et al, 2021 ; Passaro et al, 2021 ). However, commonly used association analyses between diet, microbiome composition, and disease do not infer causality or attempt to establish master regulators/pathways that can be affected by inverse causality and other confounding factors.…”

Advances and potential of omics studies for understanding the development of food allergy

“…Large scale omics approaches have provided an invaluable resource for discovering the disease development and druggable targets in many different diseases (89)(90)(91), and technological advances continue to make these technologies more powerful and affordable. To date, the use of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics have been more focused on identifying biomarkers for the presence or absence of FA, however application of these technologies could also be used for the characterization of FA development.…”

Food allergy, mechanisms, diagnosis and treatment: Innovation through a multi‐targeted approach

“…Large‐scale omics approaches have been an invaluable asset for the identification of diagnostic and prognostic markers, as well as for defining disease endotypes for a wide variety of diseases and pathologies, 38‐40 however, so far, there has been limited application of these approaches to FA. Recent and previous studies have used approaches such as transcriptomics, epigenomics to identify markers for processes such as reaction diagnosis of allergy, reaction severity and outcomes during OIT, which may lead to innovative improvements to standard clinical assays 28,41‐48 .…”